Imitation Game tops 2011 Black List

By IBT Staff Reporter On 12/12/11 AT 3:43 PM

The Imitation Game, Graham Moore's story of a British World War II cryptographer who poisoned himself after being criminally prosecuted for being gay, tops this year's Hollywood Black List of best unproduced scripts of 2011.

On Friday, that script topped The Hit List, Trackingboard.com's annual list of best unproduced spec scripts.

Franklin Leonard, a former Universal Pictures executive who now works with Will Smith's Overbrook Entertainment, has been compiling the Black List for seven years.

Since the first list, in 2005, more than 120 Black List scripts have been produced, Leonard said.

He told TheWrap that every year, he asks several hundred film executives -- creative executives, studio presidents of production, financiers, production company executives -- to submit a list of up to 10 of their favorite scripts of the year.

The list, he said in an email to TheWrap, is essentially an aggregation of those votes.

This year more than 300 executives voted, and 73 scripts got at least six votes -- the minimum necessary to be on the 2011 list.

Leonard said that since 2005, more than 120 Black List scripts have been made into feature films, grossing more than $11 billion at the box office.

Black List films have been nominated for more than 80 Academy Awards and have won 20, including best picture for Slumdog Millionaire and The King's Speech. Juno and The Social Network also have made the list.

Other titles that have made the list include Margin Call, Abduction, Crazy, Stupid Love, Oz: The Great and Powerful, Safe House, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Hunger Games and College Republicans.

This year, Leonard also launched a premium service. For a $20 monthly fee, people can rate scripts that they have read and receive recommendations on what else they might like.

Think Netflix or Amazon's ratings and recommendations, only for screenplays, Leonard wrote.